as a true genuine bubble of ideas and ideology but also economically here a thousand dollars or even fifty bucks in some guy's pocket is changes their perception of the world around them and that's just the simple it's so obvious and simple and like bill clinton got it i don't understand why these people can't get it is just that people don't care about the deficit the republicans have been saying that over and over and over but they you know the fact is the ordinary person doesn't care about that as long as they have money in their pocket as the washington post says here it had polled abysmally amid forecasts that some voters will pay higher taxes in years to come and the democrats believe those polls just like they believe the polls they hillary somehow despite the obvious absence of any you know passionate support for her they believe the polls that still she would miraculously win here they believe the wrong polls that people would be against

these tax cuts but all you need to do is put fifty cents in their pocket and they feel what fifty cent behind it is again to put fifty cent in your pocket. is not a fifty cent in your pocket is happy to say me what's going on here he's a seem like everywhere this guy now i get it so the money in your pocket is very convincing you know you got a thousand bucks i remember when i back under reagan i was a proofreader in a rubber stamp factory and reagan changed the withholding tax and i got an extra fifty bucks in my paycheck. or probably. get paid every two weeks and i don't think going to wow and i remember very distinctly my coworker this lovely black woman who was looking at this my coworker and. there is more money for. more money for you honey something to that effect. paraphrase of course but you know choose the real for a buck i was there all the relevant to the money people want the money there and so this could be a you know throw the traditional midterm election theme

a little bit make it more unpredictable than is usually predictable but there's another one which is the tax cuts have hit a lot of homeowners and places like new york city and san francisco well ok they're normally not going to vote republican anyway but you know pending home sales tumbled to a three year low as housing crisis worsens so pending home sales fell four point seven percent in january this usually takes a while to trickle through but the point is that. you know the largest private land owner in the us. the landlord is blackstone group so since there's been a alleged recovery in housing prices since the crash in two thousand and nine but most of it is gone to the likes of blackstone group and if you look at that house prices actually aside a great chart from i think it was the financial times that price an s. and p.

five hundred actually house prices have been declining so it hasn't been performing as well as s. and they've been underperforming the stock market oh my god blackstone one arbitrage opportunity you have are automatics just selves i suggest you short yourselves or borrow money into you viscera your own corporate balance sheet and then blow your brains out on live t.v. they gave us all of the kind of fun experience for the financial predatory class. well don't go away much work coming your way after the break so stay right there. it's been almost fifty years since we've had human beings on the surface of another planetary body and i hope that we could actually put together an international lunar exploration initiative much like we have the international space station consortium and together the countries of the world cooperating with the private

sector could afford to get back into real space exploration and i think that would that would create a real a lot of excitement. by too many flips over so i know the game and so i got. the ball isn't only about what happens on the pitch for the final school it's about the passion from the families it's the age of the ship the money just. and spending student twenty million on one player. it's an experience like nothing else not to because i want to share what i think of what i know about the beautiful game great so what chance with. the thinks it's going to.

most people think to stand out in this is this you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest race in truth to stand down whose business is just the dance the right questions and the right answer. questions. welcome back to the kaiser report i'm ask eyes or time to go to wolf richter of wall street dot com out there in the bubble iest of all bubble markets san francisco wall welcome back to the guys report thanks max for having me back all right well if you're right that markets are still and denial about the increasingly haka. what do you mean by a hawkish fed and how are markets in denial about the so-called hoggish this wealth

. well first we have to explain that hawkish today doesn't mean what hawkish meant in the early one nine hundred eighty s. when volcker. interest rates one hundred basis points and one meeting and and then the next meeting regimen a hundred basis points i want percentage point each that was hockey by any definition what we have today is a fed that raises perhaps. four times in an entire year so one percentage point in an entire year and welcome would have done that in one meeting so the definitions have changed a little bit but. the markets are until very recently were penciling in just two rate hikes this year and even though the fed has been saying we're going to be three most likely they have been several fed governors who have recently opened the

door to four rate hikes. powell and his testimony before congress added to that chorus he opened the door to a fourth rate hike this year the markets are still not ready for that for rate hikes mean it means that mortgage rates are going to be about five percent by the end of the year maybe closer to six percent and it means that the ten year yield for the u.s. treasury market would be in now and in in around four pm the four percent range and it shuffles the cost of borrowing for companies and for four households so this has a dramatic impact now this doesn't sound like a lot of people you know thinking whoa whoa correction interest rates to one thousand percent well this is not going to happen this time around but they are rising and. you know markets have especially the corporate bond markets of completely blown it off their debt just have not reacted to to the rate hike

environment yet but they're going. there you can see the first the first indications that they're getting the message and which you were talking about you on the vestment site but for corporations it makes it barring more expensive for me makes created harder to come by for companies that a chunk raided so it tightens up the financial conditions and it'll take a lot of the credit enthusiasm out of the market right well to put this into historical perspective as you mentioned back in nineteen eighty paul volcker was a hawk and he raised interest rates up at one point at a time and we got up to the mid teens on the interest rates and but as you point out if in fact we start off at a twenty five percent fed funds rate and that rate goes to one percent or two percent that's a four to eight hundred percent rise which actually on

a percentage basis would be greater than the rises under paul volcker and this would cover a much bigger pool of debt so the question therefore is. did it if in fact inflation genie is out of the bottle and the i.s.i. manufacturing gauge has had a thirteen year high of sixty point eight percent in february it indicates that inflation is roaring back the fed has always told us that they can take those toxic assets off their balance sheets and return them to the marketplace without causing all kinds of market may have is that possible wolf. i think it's important to realize what the fed is trying to do and the fed is trying to tighten up financial conditions which means raising year olds which means by definition falling bond prices so the fed has also talked about the elevated

valuations in the stock market certain fed governors have talked about price bubbles in commercial real estate which is back before trillion dollars in debt that are sitting on the banks hold and that. commercial mortgage backed securities are or are backed by and so you have various fed governors look at various. pricing or valuations out there and they're discovering and that's died in a study and a half ago and that discovering that after years of key and zero interest rate policy that asset prices have gone out of whack and so they're purposefully trying to lower them that's what that's what it means to tighten financial conditions make make it harder to borrow money bring valuations down a little bit and so they're you know that targeting asset prices with us and that's

just by definition so the question is that you asked whether they can do that whether they can low asset prices without causing a lot of mayhem in the markets and i don't know you know it i think the plan is to do it very gradually without made him so spread it out over the years that's why the interest rate hikes have been so slow this in this cycle extraordinarily slow and you know biggest i know that asset prices are way out of whack and they know that there's this huge amount of debt out there at all levels governments in a simple government corporations consume us and it's very difficult for for these entities to digest high inches. traits and everything has been picked on near zero interest rates so i think that trying to create a soft landing for markets and our history in trying to create soft landings is very spotty so i'm not sure that they're going to accomplish a soft landing or that it's going to be some other landing. right you know the

history of the bond market going back to again to nine hundred eighty was the beginning of this twenty six twenty seven year bull market and bonds interest rates have ban on balance going down for twenty six there's two generations of americans and people around the world have never known an environment of falling bond prices in a big way and rising interest rates in a meaningful way and they central banks including the fed are trying to engineer something that is in my view in possibility because they are going to signal to this massively over leverage global bond market and stock market and asset markets that are controlled by trigger happy hedge funds with hundreds of trillions of dollars that buying power at their disposal that they are going to ask them not to

panic sell their bond portfolios in a rising interest rate environment that's absurd of course there'll be a panic sell of bonds of course they'll be a bond crash in the very near future if the market thinks that rates are going up to the levels you're talking about i think the question we have to ask ourselves is when will the fed choke every single time the markets come down in a big way the fed has backed off and they've become accommodative they've given wall street what they want more free money remember this is a global ponzi scheme that we live and engineered by crooks at the central banks wealth how much of a bond crash will we need before they capitulate and say we understand we have no control of the situation and wall street is our master would be a twenty percent fall twenty five percent fall in the bonds before they roll over and play dead once again wolf i think we can look at it as a model so or will top. in two thousand and fourteen the price of oil and and then

came damn by two thousand and fifteen and two thousand and sixteen energy company small ones were going bankrupt and their loans and bonds were defaulting and credit froze up and and the lower rated spectrum of those energy junk bonds year old spiked over twenty percent and companies that needed to roll over that debt meaning their bonds came due in the material they had to pay him off and they couldn't raise any more money to do that yes so they went bankrupt and so credit froze up on that level and this is when the fed came out and said we're going to stop you know your member of the december before send you some a two thousand fifteen hype their rates the first time and so when this whole thing with credit froze up in january two thousand and sixteen for these energy companies and it started to spread a little bit to other sectors the fed came out and said essentially we're going to

stop these hikes and they started flip flopping big time again and. and that was in essence every action to the bond market not to the stock market you know they're really worried about credit freezing up in a credit dependent economy and so when that happens that would that will back off to some extent now they didn't lower rates back then you know they didn't change that insta restart key all they did is stop raising rates and so this could be the model if it's junk bond yields blow out and create freezes. across to create a company and they having trouble raising money you know you've got. to pull c rated yields and above twenty percent it may very well be that the fed will say ok we're going to hang on for a while financial conditions have tightened enough that's what they want to do is tighten financial conditions but not too much you know that's what that means iowa

. well if i mean ok the credit freeze and energy market they've backed off and there was a credit freeze in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight that caused the global financial crisis and they backed off and they bailed out the creditors and not the debtors there in the pockets of the banks and although they stopped easing money as you point out their friends in other countries like the e.c.b. and bank of japan open the spigots of money in a huge way the net global growth of money supplies been increasing year over year over year and the debt to g.d.p. of the world is at skyrocketing levels of three hundred four hundred percent global debt to global g.d.p. hey this is an enormous ponzi scheme there's no escape from this enormous ponzi scheme and the best they can do is try to scare the market into not crashing a little bit but look out is that's impossible nobody nobody's going to be able to

is to talk cancer away there's a cancer in the market you can just ask it to walk away and not attack the cancer is over leverage speculative jihadi financial terrorist with too much money to speculate on these bond markets and the fed has nothing to do about it they're going to and i fight they're going to a gun fight with a knife. how they're going to do you honestly believe that they're going to be able to manage this exit from quantitative easing without a catastrophic bomb collapse and we have about thirty seconds and then hopefully i can stay for another segment well i certainly hope so because when there's a catastrophic on crash there will just restart the whole mess all we get it will make this situation worse so my wishful thinking is that yes that will be able to engineers some kind of acceptable ending and spread it out long enough to war you know companies that have good credit can survive it and that the zombie companies are allowed to die off yeah well that hasn't been the history so far there is no

zombie company. that has been left behind every single insolvent bank whether is j.p. morgan h.s.b.c. b.n.p. in france or deutsche bank in germany has been allowed to operate as an insolvent institution purely on the large debts of the public's free money anyway we gotta go thanks for being on the kaiser report here. all right that's going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with me max kaiser and stacey i would like to thank our guests all frets are of wall street dot com if you want to write us on twitter it's guys report that i stop by i'll. be rich but i'm stephen baldwin. hollywood guy next. proud american first of all i'm just george bush and r.v. news this is my buddy max famous financial guru just

a little bit different. than your windows up with all the drama happening in our country and. every day americans. please start to bridge the gap this is the great american.

president signs an order imposing tariffs on steel an aluminum imports into the u.s. . yes despite warnings of a global trade war. several fatalities are confirmed after terrorists shells civilians trying to escape the syrian rebels all claim of eastern. and british police say a former russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent but had secretary amber rudd warns against speculation while the investigation is ongoing. if we are to be rigorous in this investigation we must avoid speculation and allow the police to carry out that investigation.

this is r.t. international coming to you live from moscow i'm kate partridge thank you for joining us. here as president donald trump has signed an order imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into america but in a concession to the country's neighbors the tax will not apply to canada or mexico today i'm defending america's national security by placing tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum the american steel low milage astri has been ravaged by aggressive foreign trade practices. it's really an assault on our country despite domestic and international backlash trump has signed a proclamation imposing twenty five percent tariffs on steel imports and ten percent tariffs on alimony and imports encouraging companies to buy american well

the president argues that protecting these industries will guarantee economic and national security however trump has offered relief to some u.s. allies the tariffs will not apply to imports from canada and mexico at least temporarily until a nafta or the north american free trade agreement is negotiated even though trump has received some domestic applause from unions in particular that was the case internationally when he first announced these new tariffs on twitter the world was furious. which you should try your. choosing a trade war is surely the wrong prescription for china will certainly make it appropriate and necessary response we will defend our interests if we need to come . i'm convinced that

increased terrorists will hurt us all in the long run trade will stop and easy. well trump has stated in the past that he sees nothing wrong with trade wars and now other allies are threatening tariffs on u.s. imports of peanuts juice alcohol and cetera but trump's move has been met with domestic backlash as well from both democrats and republicans who believe that protectionism harms national security now more than a hundred house republican members signed a letter on wednesday expressing deep concern about the plan suggesting to change the course of action q. quote avoid untended negative consequences to the u.s. . anomie and its workers but considering that canada and mexico have been exempt one can't help but wonder if these tariffs are intended to china trump has listed trying to as a threat to national security and he's repeatedly expressed the need to counter

china so we can't be too sure but it'll definitely be interesting to see how china the e.u. and other u.s. allies react. while unveiling his new terrorist president trump invited metal industry workers for a group photo in the oval office but he appeared to have forgotten an important detail would you like to take a picture in the oval office i assume you've all been many times into the oval office come on let's go and do that let's go into the side yes i'm going to give will go into the oval office we're going to sign this will go into the oval office we have a picture ok ok thank you. treasury secretary steve minucci in their words reminding the president that he hadn't yet signed the order the plan has received broad support from steel and the new minium firms in the us. economist jeffrey tucker told us the new terrorist could force key u.s. allies to seek new trade partners. so it seems as if every european nation is

is washing their hands of the u.s. we're no longer trustworthy trade partners in light of this and so europe is seeking other allies china canada australia you know anywhere in the world the us and this is been growing for some months is that i see is becoming isolated and i and the global economy and let's not make any mistake about this in the twenty first century there's no such thing as as as nations when it comes to economic affairs anymore we all must cooperate together and the u.s. is excluding itself and giving up its credibility what trumpets doing here is is contrary to the national interest and contrary to the good of the global economy. militants have shelled a refugee convoy trying to leave the syrian rebel on plate at the eastern go to the russian defense ministry has confirmed that several civilians were killed in the

assault what i guess the if reports. according to the russian military the three hundred families had allegedly gathered together to leave eastern ghouta crossing the frontlines is always dangerous so it's best done when there's a safe window with the agreement of both deliverance the syrian government was waiting for them the rebels this he knew what was going on and shelled them they reportedly shelled the procession of civilians i mean a kilometer before they were out of east ghouta and then to top it all off they shelled the relatives and journalists waiting in the syrian side at the end of the corridor nothing's changed they aren't allowing civilians to leave just like the islam islam is brother and did in aleppo. and then. that started to you know. he never said here

it wouldn't have a. lot of. what they said about you but any use for that ministry in some sour city kind of thing. yet here in washington tell it they don't mention that they think it's joke like russia has called for these jokes like humanitarian corridors russia needs to just do what the united nations had agreed to and voted on and that is a countrywide ceasefire fleeing civilians would mean less human shields it would be a p.r. blue people don't want to stay with the rebels they'll talk say all sorts of horrible things about life and the jihad ists they'll challenge the narrative why let them leave too many problems take also rebel shelling of damascus blind aimless

shells peppered damascus daily for years now so many dead and still die. sighing still to die yet you won't see any he's styria about that in fact you won't hear much at all they won't admit that rebels are keeping people hostage because that justifies assad's operation as do those that died in rebel shelling so why mention it it ruins the narrative it's so much simpler when it's all black and white but most of the united states press is clearly on the side of the rebels they believe that assad is an evil person who is running an evil regime and they'd like to see it fall and therefore stories about the suffering of syrians of damascus because that rebel or it meant don't make much impression and occasionally they get through the stories but they are they're not. they're not the overriding story which is

that this is a brutal regime and refuses to make compromise and sleeting to a very lopsided narrative. well that happened just hours after dozens of aid trucks were temporarily prevented from entering eastern houston fighting on the ground on monday shellfire forced another convoy to turn around and leave the enclave the situation in the area remains don. if.

there. was. a former russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent according to police in the u.k. so gay and you hear screw pole are now in a critical condition after being found unconscious in the city of sorcery on sunday the country's top counterterrorism officer mark riley says the pair were targeted deliberately but this is being treated as a major incidents involving attempted murder mystery over nerve agents i will not be providing credit for most of the state about the exact steps things that has been identified so to go to the used to so.